A few weeks ago I was in the US on a business trip when I realized, to my delight that the hotel I was staying in had HBO. And that I was going to be able to watch the first episode of the media behemoth that is The Pacific.

The long, long LONG awaited follow up to Band of Brothers, this is a show with a huge amount of pressure on it's shoulders. Band of Brothers was a phenomenon. I don't think that anyone would have been able to imagine the impact that it was going to have. Sure it had all the big names behind it, but it was a massive risk. Thank goodness some TV exec took that risk though, because it remains incredibly popular, and whenever we ask people what their favourite military film is, Band of Brothers always crops up.

With a bigger budget, a longer period of shooting, and a huge advertising budget behind it, The Pacific surely would not disappoint. I was in the US for a week and must have seen hundreds of posters and television adverts promoting the first show - so I sat down on a Sunday evening, ready to be blown away.

Now I am going to be honest up front. I have only seen the first episode of the show. I haven't been able to watch any of the other episodes as I am back in the UK.

But I have changed my mind about buying Sky Movies just to watch the show. I was really underwhelmed by what I saw. The Pacific simply does not have the soul and style that Band of Brothers had. Visually it is a fine piece of work (although some of the 'sets' seem a little flimsy compared to B of B). The first episode centred on the US invasion of Guadalcanal. I don't want to ruin the episode for you by revealing the plot, but actually that is pretty tough to do, as there did not seem to be any coherent story line in the episode at all. There were some characters. But little in the way of characterization.

There were all of the moments of excitement and suspense that you would expect from The Pacific. All of the equipment, weaponry, terminology seemed pretty much spot on (always a must from an Osprey point of view) but from the moment the credits began to roll I found myself thinking that I might just wait for the box set of dvds to be released...and then reduced on price...before I watch the rest of the series.

I hope that in the next couple of episodes some semblance of story telling emerges, so that we can start to identify with the characters. Sure I suppose we can attribute the lack of coherence down to the chaos and confusion of war, and as a thematic device that can work. Just not across close to 10 hours worth of TV.

So what do you all think? Am I being a little too harsh? Has it improved (please please let it get better)? Should I get on the phone to Sky? Or should I wait for a second hand copy of the DVDs picked up from Amazon?